"...that's the most extraordinary stuff I've ever tasted! It's shattering!" - "Big X" Bartlett, in "The Great Escape"

Gina and I tried our hands at cheesemaking this past Saturday night. (Yeah, we live la vida loca over here.) I was hungry on the way over to Gina's, having skipped dinner, so stopped for some fries - this juxtaposition amused me. (I am sorry, I HAVE read Fast Food Nation, and I understand McDonald's is an evil, corporate giant, but I owe them some gratitude for getting me through all three pregnancies alive.)


We followed the recipe for Thirty-Minute Mozzarella in Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal Vegetable Miracle (I am starting to feel like a shill...), but you can also find the recipe online at the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company website. The milk was organic, pasteurized whole milk I bought at the East End Food Co-op, which is also where I found the rennet. Gina drove down to South Hills Brewing for the citric acid. The thermometer was an old candy thermometer I had lying around. It was mildly inconvenient that the temps we needed to observe were under the milk, but we figured it out. We started with the gallon of cold milk; at 55 degrees F, we stirred in the 1/4 tsp of rennet dissolved in a quarter-cup of bottled water.

We stirred languidly, the pot over a medium-ish flame.
Just as we were saying, "It's not DOING anything," the milk began to curdle, just the teeniest bit, at about 88 degrees F, as promised.


From there on, we exhibited a leetle bit more faith, added the (1/4 tsp dissolved in water) citric acid, and the curds, they came. Right about at 100 degrees F, again as promised. The whey became sort of clear but yellowish. Very attractive. (Like the juvenile I am, I observed that it sort of looked like vomit. Well, it DID.)



We scooped the biggest curds out, but resorted to a colander/strainer type thingey for the rest of the draining. If you were going to use the whey to reheat the cheese, you would want to drain into something, but we - wasteful people and not having any handy piggies - poured it down the drain. (Gina observed, more than likely correctly, that this was probably the first time whey had ever been poured down that drain.)


"Wringing out the cheese, wringing out the cheese! We shall come rejoicing, wringing out the cheese!"


We dutifully heated (35-40 seconds in the microwave)and kneaded and stretched it, heated and kneaded and stretched again, heated and kneaded and stretched again. We actually had to reheat a fourth time as the first two times we had not heated nearly enough. You want the cheese to be almost liquidy, and yes, it gets HOT. We were all, "Wow, wussies!" kneading the first two times, "La la la, this isn't too bad!" but when we'd finally heated it ENOUGH, I danced around and did my Ouchy-ouchy-ouch dance while stretching the cheese. (It was very attractive, let me tell you.) We put on and kneaded in about a teaspoon, maybe two, of kosher salt when directed to 'salt to taste.'


Finally, we had something resembling cheese. (On top of tupperware, as all of Gina's plates are white, and the cheese wasn't shown off to full advantage on them.) It smelled good, and it looked ok, rather...cheese-like, even if I do say so myself. I can't wait to try mine on homemade pizza tonight.


See how CUTE? I am SO giving people homemade mozzarella cheese for Christmas this year, wrapped in foil over the wax paper and tied with ribbons at either end. So festive, cheese bon-bons. You know, nothing quite says "Season's greetings!" like a ball o' cheese.